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Delivered September 5, igoiy President's Day 
at the Pan-American Exposition^ Buffalo 






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£)eUi)errt September 5, 1901 
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New York 

HENRY MALKAN 
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President Milburn^ Director-General Bu- 
chanan^ Commissioners^ Ladies and Gentlemen: 
I am glad to again be in the city of Buf- 
falo and exchange greetings with her people, 
to whose generous hospitality I am not a 
stranger, and with whose good will I 
have been repeatedly and signally honored. 
To-day I have additional satisfaction in 
meeting and giving welcome to the foreign 
representatives assembled here, whose pres- 
ence and participation in this Exposition 
have contributed in so marked a degree to 
its interest and success. To the Commis- 
sioners of the Dominion of Canada and 
the British Colonies, the French Colonies, 
the republics of Mexico and of Central and 
South America, and the Commissioners of 
Cuba and Porto Rico, who share with us 
in this undertaking, we give the hand of fel- 
lowship, and felicitate with them upon the 
triumphs of art, science, education and 
manufacture, which the old has bequeathed 
to the new century. 

Expositions are the time-keepers of prog- 
ress. They record the world's advancement. 
They stimulate the energy, enterprise and 
intellect of the people, and quicken human 



6 PRESIDENT McKINLEY'S 

genius. They go into the home. They 
broaden and brighten the daily life of the 
people. They open mighty storehouses of 
information to the student. Every exposi- 
tion, great or small, has helped to some 
onward step. 

Comparison of ideas is always educational, 
and as such instructs the brain and hand 
of men. Friendly rivalry follows, which 
is the spur to industrial improvement, the 
inspiration to useful invention and to high 
endeavor in all departments of human ac- 
tivity. It exacts a study of the wants, 
comforts, and even the whims of the people, 
and recognizes the efficacy of high quality 
and low prices to win their favor. The 
quest for trade is an incentive to men of 
business to devise, invent, improve, and 
economize in the cost of production. Busi- 
ness life, whether among ourselves or with 
other peoples, is ever a sharp struggle for 
success. It will be none the less so in the 
future. Without competition we would be 
clinging to the clumsy and antiquated proc- 
esses of farming and manufacture, and the 
methods of business of long ago, and the 
twentieth would be no further advanced than 
the eighteenth century. But though com- 
mercial competitors we are, commercial 
enemies we must not be. 

The Pan-American Exposition has done 
its work thoroughly, presenting in its ex- 



LAST SPEECH 7 

hibits evidences of the highest skill and 
illustrating the progress of the human family 
in the western hemisphere. This portion of 
the earth has no cause for humiliation for 
the part it has performed in the march of 
civilization. It has not accomplished every- 
thing ; far from it. It has simply done its 
best, and without vanity or boastfulness, and 
recognizing the manifold achievements of 
others, it invites the friendly rivalry of all the 
Powers in the peaceful pursuits of trade and 
commerce, and will cooperate with all in ad- 
vancing the highest and best interests of 
humanity. The wisdom and energy of all 
the nations are none too great for the world's 
work. The success of art, science, industry, 
and invention is an international asset, and a 
common glory. 

After all, how near one to the other is 
every part of the world. Modern inventions 
have brought into close relation widely 
separated peoples and made them better ac- 
quainted. Geographic and political divisions 
will continue to exist, but distances have 
been effaced. Swift ships and fast trains are 
becoming cosmopolitan. They invade fields 
which a few years ago were impenetrable. 
The world's products are exchanged as never 
before and with increasing transportation 
facilities come increasing knowledge and 
larger trade. Prices are fixed with mathe- 
matical precision by supply and demand. 



8 PRESIDENT McKINLEY'S 

The world's selling prices are regulated by 
market and crop reports. We travel greater 
distances in a shorter space of time and with 
more ease than was ever dreamed of by the 
fathers. Isolation is no longer possible or 
desirable. The same important news is read, 
though in different languages, the same day 
in all Christendom. 

The telegraph keeps us advised of what 
is occurring everywhere, and the press fore- 
shadows, with more or less accuracy, the 
plans and purposes of the nations. Market 
prices of products and of securities are hourly 
known in every commercial mart, and the 
investments of the people extend beyond 
their own national boundaries into the re- 
motest parts of the earth. Vast transactions 
are conducted and international exchanges 
are made by the tick of the cable. Every 
event of interest is immediately bulletined. 
The quick gathering and transmission of 
news, like rapid transit, are of recent origin, 
and are only made possible by the genius of 
the inventor and the courage of the investor. 
It took a special messenger of the Govern- 
ment, with every facility known at the time 
for rapid travel, nineteen days to go from 
the city of Washington to New Orleans 
with a message to General Jackson that the 
war with England had ceased and a treaty of 
peace had been signed. How different now. 
We reached General Miles, in Porto Rico, 



LAST SPEECH 9 

and he was able through the mihtary tele- 
graph to stop his army on the firing line with 
the message that the United States and Spain 
had signed a protocol suspending hostilities. 
We knew almost instantly of the first shots 
fired at Santiago, and the subsequent sur- 
render of the Spanish forces was known at 
Washington within less than an hour of its 
consummation. The first ship of Cervera's 
fleet had hardly emerged from that historic 
harbor when the fact was flashed to our 
Capitol, and the swift destruction that 
followed was announced immediately through 
the wonderful medium of telegraphy. 

So accustomed are we to safe and easy 
communication with distant lands that its 
temporary interruption, even in ordinary 
times, results in loss and inconvenience. We 
shall never forget the days of anxious wait- 
ing and suspense when no information was 
permitted to be sent from Pekin, and the 
diplomatic representatives of the nations in 
China, cut ofi^ from all communication, inside 
and outside of the walled capital, were sur- 
rounded by an angry and misguided mob 
that threatened their lives ; nor the joy that 
thrilled the world when a single message 
from the Government of the United States 
brought through our Minister the first news 
of the safety of the besieged diplomats. 

At the beginning of the nineteenth century 
there was not a mile of steam railroad on the 



lo PRESIDENT McKINLEY'S 

globe ; now there are enough miles to make 
its circuit many times. Then there was not 
a line of electric telegraph; now we have a 
vast mileage traversing all lands and all seas. 
God and man have linked the nations 
together. No nation can longer be indifferent 
to any other. And as we are brought more 
and more in touch with each other, the less 
occasion is there for misunderstandings, and 
the stronger the disposition, when we have 
differences, to adjust them in the court of 
arbitration, which is the noblest forum for 
the settlement of international disputes. 

My fellow citizens, trade statistics indi- 
cate that this country is in a state of un- 
exampled prosperity. The figures are almost 
appalling. They show that we are utilizing 
our fields and forests and mines, and that we 
are furnishing profitable employment to the 
millions of workingmen throughout the 
United States, bringing comfort and happi- 
ness to their homes, and making it possible 
to lay by savings for old age and disability. 
That all the people are participating in this 
great prosperity is seen in everv American 
community and shown by the enormous and 
unprecedented deposits in our savings banks. 
Our duty in the care and security of these 
deposits and their safe investment demands 
the highest integrity and the best business 
capacity of those in charge of these deposi- 
tories of the people's earnings. 



LAST SPEECH ii 

We have a vast and intricate business, 
built up through years of toil and struggle, 
in which every part of the country has its 
stake, which will not permit of either neglect, 
or of undue selfishness. No narrow, sor- 
did policy will subserve it. The greatest 
skill and wisdom on the part of manufacturers 
and producers will be required to hold and 
increase it. Our industrial enterprises, which 
have grown to such great proportions, affect 
the homes and occupations of the people and 
the welfare of the country. Our capacity to 
produce has developed so enormously and 
our products have so multiplied that the 
problem of more markets requires our urgent 
and immediate attention. Only a broad and 
enlightened policy will keep what we have. 
No other policy will get more. In these 
times of marvellous business energy and 
gain we ought to be looking to the future, 
strengthening the weak places in our indus- 
trial and commercial systems, that we may be 
ready for any storm or strain. 

By sensible trade arrangements which will 
not interrupt our home production we shall 
extend the outlets for our increasing surplus. 
A system which provides a mutual exchange 
of commodities is manifestly essential to the 
continued and healthful growth of our export 
trade. We must not repose in fancied 
security that we can forever sell everything 
and buy little or nothing. If such a thing 



12 PRESIDENT McKINLEY'S 

were possible it would not be best for us or 
for those with whom we deal. We should 
take from our customers such of their pro- 
ducts as we can use without harm to our 
industries and labor. Reciprocity is the 
natural outgrowth of our wonderful industrial 
development under the domestic policy now 
firmly established. 

What we produce beyond our domestic 
consumption must have a vent abroad. The 
excess must be relieved through a foreign 
outlet, and we should sell everywhere we can 
and buy wherever the buying will enlarge 
our sales and productions, and thereby make 
a greater demand for home labor. 

The period of exclusiveness is past. The 
expansion of our trade and commerce is the 
pressing problem. Commercial wars are 
unprofitable. A policy of good will and 
friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals. 
Reciprocity treaties are in harmony with the 
spirit of the times ; measures of retaliation 
are not. If, perchance, some of our tariffs 
are no longer needed for revenue or to 
encourage and protect our industries at home, 
why should they not be employed to extend 
and promote our markets abroad? Then, 
too, we have inadequate steamship service. 
New lines of steamships have already been 
put in commission between the Pacific coast 
ports of the United States and those on the 
western coasts of Mexico and Central and 



LAST SPEECH 13 

South America. These should be followed 
up with direct steamship lines between the 
western coast of the United States and South 
American ports. One of the needs of the 
times is direct commercial lines from our 
vast fields of production to the fields of con- 
sumption that we have but barely touched. 
Next in advantage to having the thing to sell 
is to have the conveyance to carry it to the 
buyer. We must encourage our merchant 
marine. We must have more ships. They 
must be under the American flag, built and 
manned and owned by Americans. These 
will not only be profitable in a commercial 
sense; they will be messengers of peace and 
amity wherever they go. 

We must build the Isthmian Canal, which 
will unite the two oceans and give a straight 
line of water communication with the western 
coasts of Central and South America and 
Mexico. The construction of a Pacific cable 
cannot be longer postponed. In the fur- 
therance of these objects of national interest 
and concern you are performing an impor- 
tant part. This Exposition would have 
touched the heart of that American statesman 
whose mind was ever alert and thought ever 
constant for a larger commerce and a truer 
fraternity of the republics of the New 
World. His broad American spirit is felt 
and manifested here. He needs no identi- 
fication to an assemblage of Americans any- 



14 McKINLEY'S LAST SPEECH 

where, for the name of Blaine is inseparably 
associated with the Pan-American movement 
which finds here practical and substantial ex- 
pression, and which we all hope will be firmly 
advanced by the Pan-American Congress 
that assembles this autumn in the capital of 
Mexico. The good work will go on. It 
cannot be stopped. These buildings will 
disappear; this creation of art and beauty 
and industry will perish from sight, but their 
influence will remain to "make it live beyond 
its too short living with praises and thanks- 
giving." Who can tell the new thoughts 
that have been awakened, the ambitions fired 
and the high achievements that will be 
wrought through this Exposition ? 

Let us ever remember that our interest is 
in concord, not conflict; and that our real 
eminence rests in the victories of peace, not 
those of war. We hope that all who are 
represented here may be moved to higher 
and nobler effbrt for their own and the 
world's good, and that out of this city may 
come not only greater commerce and trade 
for us all, but, more essential than these, re- 
lations of mutual respect, confidence and 
friendship which will deepen and endure. 
Our earnest prayer is that God will graciously 
vouch-safe prosperity, happiness and peace 
to all our neighbors, and like blessings to all 
the peoples and powers of earth. 



